Special Tribunal for Lebanon Hands Down Historic Verdict on Hariri Assassination Charges

After 13 years of work, the Trial Chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) on Aug. 19 issued a long-awaited judgment on the case it was primarily established to hear: the prosecution of several alleged Hezbollah members for a bombing in Beirut on Valentine’s Day 2005 that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, and 21 others and wounded more than 200 people.

The judgment was initially scheduled to be delivered in May but was delayed twice—first due to the coronavirus pandemic and second as a gesture of solidarity for the victims of the massive explosion in Beirut on Aug. 5, which devastated the city. 

How Did We Get Here?

The Trial Chamber summarized its findings about the crime that gave rise to this case at the beginning of the public pronouncement of its judgment:

1. Just before 13:00 on Monday 14 February 2005, the former prime minister of Lebanon, Mr Rafik Hariri, was travelling in his convoy in Beirut between the Lebanese Parliament and his home, Quraitem Palace. 

2. As it approached the St Georges Hotel, near the coast, a massive explosion was detonated. Mr Hariri was killed in the blast. Twenty-one others, including eight members of Mr Hariri’s convoy, and innocent bystanders, also died. Three of the victims died after the explosion, two on the following day, and the third, the Lebanese MP, Mr Bassel Fuleihan, succumbed after lying in a coma for two months. 

3. At least another 226 people were injured, some very seriously. People passing in the street and working in nearby buildings sustained terrible injuries. Many buildings were badly damaged. 

4. The explosion was triggered by a suicide bomber in a Mitsubishi Canter—a light tarpaulin covered truck, loaded with more than two tonnes of RDX high-grade explosives—that detonated as Mr Hariri’s heavily protected six vehicle convoy passed the St Georges Hotel. The explosives had the equivalent of 2,500 to 3,000 kilograms of TNT. The explosion left a crater in the road over ten metres wide and almost two metres deep. 

The reaction to the bombing catalyzed a cascade of social movements and political shake-ups in Lebanon. More than a quarter of Lebanon’s population attended demonstrations, now called the Cedar Revolution, to demand Syrian withdrawal and an independent, international investigation into Hariri’s assassination. Two weeks after the blast, the pro-Syrian Lebanese prime minister resigned; less than three months later, all official Syrian forces withdrew from the country. On Aug. 17, Beth Van Schaak detailed the process that took us from the immediate aftermath of the crime to a hybrid tribunal. As she notes, the U.N. Security Council immediately formed an independent investigative commission to probe the bombing. After a request by the Lebanese government to establish a tribunal “of an international character” and despite Lebanon’s failure to ratify an agreement with the Security Council establishing the tribunal, the Security Council passed a resolution establishing the STL pursuant to its authority under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. The tribunal’s statute endowed it with jurisdiction over the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, the harm to other victims of the attack, and “other attacks that occurred in Lebanon between 1 October 2004 and 12 December 2005, or any later date decided by the Parties and with the consent of the Security Council, [that] are connected in accordance with the principles of criminal justice and are of a nature and gravity similar to the attack of 14 February 2005.” 

There are a few factors that make the STL stand out: its establishment by Chapter VII after an incomplete agreement between the Security Council and the Lebanese government; its use of trials in absentia, consistent with Lebanese law; its particular definition of the crime of terrorism under international law; its detailed use of electronic evidence from cell phones, including geolocation evidence; and its reliance on the historic analytical work of a Lebanese intelligence officer, Advertise on IT Security News.